--- Chuck Munson <chuck at tao.ca> wrote:
> Thomas Seay wrote:
it was really depressing to
> read about the
> fixation with Marxist-Leninism and Maoism. After a
> while, your eyes glaze
> over after reading about which group worked with
> which group and what the
> lines were for the sectarian groups.
Chuck, you might enjoy Elbaum's book as it attempts (and succeeds in my opinion) in tracing how maoism came to be so prominent at that time.
As for me, I came to these politics in the late 70s. I was just a high school student from a hicktown in West Virginia, at a time when all hell was breaking loose in the minefields. My decision to join the CWP (I was also in contact with the RCP at the time) was based not so much on an understanding of ideology but rather a desire to fight. In the process I let down my critical faculties (in order to be part of the group).
I was often nagged by the thought that "something just wasn't right within the group" but this thought was usually overridden by the close bonds I had formed with other party members. I am sure other party members had such doubts but we all mutually re-enforced the "group-mind". Finally, I bolted one day, though it took me a long time to understand why I had left.
Thomas
===== "The tradition of all the dead generations
weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living"
-Karl Marx
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